2600Jr B&W Picture. No Colour

[dudeydude]

Hey.

 

I appreciate that there are similar problems like this on the forums but I think this issue is pretty unique. We shall see...

 

So my 2600jr was working fine up until a few moments ago. In truth I hadn't played on it for over a week and I come to play on it today. Basically the picture is as normal, just B&W. No interference or anything like that. Sound is very good. I have done nothing to the 2600jr at all and I am using the same TV which allows me to display NTSC (Useful for Harmony stuff...) and all that good stuff.

 

I have tried retuning/different TV's(Modern/CRT) and all do the same thing. Tried different RF cable. All same thing. Checked the Color/BW slider and that seemed ok. Nothing had changed. So I don't get it... *shrugs*

 

Just to clarify: The picture is as it should be, just black and white. Its a PAL 2600jr so I have tried PAL carts. PAL games in Harmony. All do the same thing... Just display in B&W...

 

Any guidance or help would be appreciated.

 

Huge thanks!

[keoni29]

Get some compressed air and blow dust out of the b&w slider. If that doesn't work you should open it up and have a look at the solder points. If those look dull or cracked you have to reflow the solder. If you don't want to mess with the hardware just grab a wire or screwdriver and bridge the contacts (I don't know what the inside of the jr looks like, but these are just common procedures)

 

This might solve your problem. Otherwise capacitors might have gone bad.

[shadow460]

Try a newer game that uses the B/W switch for something else. Fantastic Voyage comes to mind. If the switch is electrically "stuck" in the B/W mode, Fantastic Voyage will be stuck in pause mode. I think Flash Gordon will do the same thing, so will several other 20th Century Fox carts.

Starmaster will also respond to the switch by bringing up the viewport or the galaxy map. If Starmaster shows up in black and white, then the switch is definitely not to blame.

 

As was stated, check the soldering on the motherboard, especially around the three large ICs.

 

If the switch is not to blame and the soldering is good, you either need to adjust the color pot or replace the TIA. The color pot is a large gray or white plastic looking thing that has a slot in it. It should be outside the RF shield. Simply turn it (gently) until the colors are right. If that doesn't help, you'll have to replace the TIA and set the color (using the color pot) to the new TIA. I don't know of a way to check the color pot without having a second TIA on hand. If the replacement doesn't work either, you could have a bad pot.

Edited February 17, 2013 by shadow460

[dudeydude]

Silly question:

 

Can I affect the 'pot' whilst the 2600jr is on? That is to say can I adjust whilst its on screen and powered up. And what exactly would I adjust? Apologies I know its a facepalm situation here but I am not exactly sure what I am doing so once again apologies.

 

Huge thanks!

[shadow460]

Yep, you can tune the color pot with the power on. I usually just set them to where the colors are close for the game that's plugged in, then I try a couple or three others to see if they look OK as well.

[dudeydude]

I apologise for the massive delay in replying to this...

 

I wanted to extend my gratitude and huge thanks as your advice gave me back my colour to my 2600jr. At least I think I did what you said.... Just really bizarre...

So heres the thing. When I got my 2600jr it was basically worked(colour etc) but the quality of the picture was poor (colour bleed, signal distortion, fuzzy sound) but I put that down to running it through RF.... Anyways since I fiddled around with the RF bit and this colour pot type stuff. Its basically better than ever!! No colour bleed or whatever... Just very bizarre. Basically my games look much better. Plus some of the colours in certain games are a slightly different shade or whatever *shrugs* so basically I am just so stoked and chuffed!

 

Huge thanks and I really appreciate it!